My Whole Situation

Hey everyone,

been feeling very frustrated lately and just wanting to write my whole story out and share it with everyone.

I've been suffering from very bad OCD for a long time. My obsession is with asbestos - the mineral fiber used in basically all building materials for quite some time (at least into the late 1980s, later in certain product circumstances). It started when we had a renovation occur at where I was living previously, at home with my family, wherein such materials were damaged. Ever since then, I've been fighting this hell. It ended up resulting in a ridiculously complimented decontamination routine just so I could leave the house, not wanting to "contaminate" my car and other important belongings, including clothing, which I began to store outside. As you can imagine, this is very difficult and poses logistic issues, especially in winter. I went through one entire winter, at extremely low temperatures, whilst keeping all clothing outside of the house, and again, most important belongings too. As this winter approached, I wanted a solution, I didn't want the same hell as last winter. So I became looking for a place to try and move out. I was going to stay with my Uncle until that fell through at, literally, the last moment.

Miraculously we ended up finding a place with my mother's friend where I could rent a room for as long as I needed. Finally, I thought, a social to this madness. Maybe I would get my freedom I had lost for so long, back. Boy was I wrong.

I got to the new place and began enjoying my "new" life. No longer feeling contaminated, and having much more freedom. That lasted a few weeks. I had my first run in with some dust and material that appeared to be vermiculite insulation in the attic area, which was often contaminated with a particularly dangerous type of asbestos. I later wrote that one off and tried to move on after discovering the material just looked like mineral pieces from a piece of dislodged roofing felt (which itself sometimes contained asbestos, but appeared okay enough to me).

Then everything really fell apart. Doing laundry, I noticed that there was some damaged vinyl sheet flooring and part of the backing was exposed. A seemingly trite discovery for most people - most probably wouldn't pay attention to it. Not for me, because that activated the OCD circuit that has been in my mind for years. You see, vinyl sheet flooring often was installed with a backing layer that contained asbestos. It poses no danger in a normal floor installation, as it is covered by the vinyl wear layer and sealed. And here it was, exposed and damaged, on the floor in the entry way to the laundry room. (Now I haven't tested the material since I am just renting here, but asbestos in this material was extremely common). After all the horrendous living in the past, here I was again, facing the beast.

Since that discovery, my brief experience with living "normally" has since passed. I can't bring myself to do laundry down there anymore, or even go down there at all. I feel completely contaminated again. Problem is this time, I don't see an escape.

I don't own the house, so I can't really do anything - and even if I did, I don't have the money for abatement consultation. Everything important, as I mentioned, was kept outside at my previous residence. I brought it all in here when I got here, thinking I was finally "safe". Now , presuming there really is a danger down there, I guess all my stuff is contaminated. How am I ever going to move on from this? Before, at least I was able to think to myself that "hey, one day I will get a different place and won't have to live this life anymore." Now, everything is contaminated and I can't afford to replace everything again. I feel like my back is against the wall and I have no options. My mind literally makes me feel "dirty" and I feel horrendously guilty being around people I care about, feeling like now I am going to be passing that contamination on to them. What makes it worse is that I feel helpless because I can't really do anything tangible about it. Just completely lost and confused and upset. This feels like a cruel joke.

Well thanks for listening, feels a tiny bit better to write everything all out.
Cheers.

The best treatment for OCD is medication and Therapy. OCD is due to a chemical imbalance- otherwise why would very young children develop it?

The medications out there do work- you just have to find one that works for you. I was on Paxil and Celexa previously- within a week of being on them I noticed a difference. It usually takes 3 weeks for the total effect to kick in.

I'm going to the doctor again in January- hopefully we can switch my meds to something that doesn't upset my stomach. (I have stomach problems and SSRI's make them worse).

Please seek treatment. The medications really really make a difference. It is silly to suffer for no reason. Celexa is really cheap by the way. $5-10 per month.